He's wrong about whether harder means worse." She absorbed this. "He must be a difficult man to live with," she said. He's the best man I know, Nathaniel said, and said it without contradiction or qualifier. Just plainly the way he said most things. He's also infuriating and entirely convinced that his way of seeing the world is the correct one.
But he built everything he has from nothing. And he did it by being honest about exactly what things cost. I disagree with him, but I can't dismiss him. Something shifted in her. He built from nothing.
He came west with $40 and a mule and a general heading. Nathaniel said the mule died first season despite herself. She said, "What did he do?" Walked. Nathaniel said, "Worked every ranch between here and the Wyoming border until he had enough to buy a small parcel on the north end of the valley. Slept under a wagon for 2 years." He paused.
He's never forgiven the world for how hard that was. But he's also never forgotten what it taught him. Amelia was quiet. She was thinking about something. She could feel it taking shape at the edge of her mind.
Some connection or recognition not fully formed yet. He came from nothing, she said. And now he's arguing that you shouldn't associate with someone who has nothing. Yes, he said he is. Has he ever thought about that?
I don't know, Nathaniel said. I don't think he has. You should tell him, she said. Tell him what exactly? That the woman he's objecting to is the same kind of person he used to be.
She said it evenly, not with anger, just with the precision she brought to ledgers and to difficult truths. That he started with nothing and built something. And that he of all people should understand what a person can be regardless of what they currently have. That if his entire argument against me is my current circumstances, it is also an argument against his younger self. Nathaniel stared at her.
She became aware she might have gone too far. I apologize. That's not my No, he said. Don't apologize. He was still looking at her with that expression she had no word for.